11/8/2023 0 Comments 5th amendment equal protection![]() ![]() ![]() While their reasons for overturning the Connecticut statute varied, many relied on the 14 th amendment. In a 7-2 ruling, the Supreme Court justices declared the law unconstitutional. Meanwhile, the state claimed it did have a compelling interest in denying even married couples access to birth control: it needed to ensure its own “continuity.” When the case was argued in front of the Supreme Court in early 1965, Griswold’s and Buxton’s lawyers contended that the law deprived both defendants and the clinic’s patients of their rights, based on the 14 th Amendment’s due process clause. At the time, providing contraceptives was illegal in the state. Lee Buxton, chairman of the Yale Medical School Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, for providing birth control to married women. She had hoped to overturn a state law dating back to 1879 that criminalized the use of contraceptives. Connecticut (June 1965)Įstelle Griswold (left), medical advisor and executive director of the Planned Parenthood Clinic in New Haven, Connecticut, and Ernest Jahncke, President of Parenthood League of Connecticut, INC., flash a victory sign after the Supreme Court ruled the state's birth control law was unconstitutional.Ĭivil rights activist Estelle Griswold fully expected to be arrested when detectives showed up in November 1961 to investigate her new Planned Parenthood clinic in New Haven, Connecticut. ![]() Just because a personal liberty or other interest isn’t specifically mentioned in the constitution, justices have argued, doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist and that it isn’t protected. That argument derives from the substantive due process clause: that neither federal nor state governments can restrict fundamental decisions that affect their liberty or property rights without proving that there’s some kind of overwhelming national interest at stake. But in a series of landmark cases, Supreme Court justices chose to extrapolate an array of civil rights rooted in the idea that Americans do possess a right to privacy. The 'Right to Privacy' ArgumentĪ “textualist”-someone who relies strictly on the exact words of a statute or of the constitution, would argue “that the right to privacy doesn’t appear anywhere in the constitution,” says Ciara Torres-Spellicy, a professor at Stetson University and a fellow of the Brennan Center for Justice. In a nutshell, it means that even if a new government regulation or law has clearly not run afoul of any procedural issues, its advocates must still demonstrate that any infringement of someone’s rights is justified and necessary. Procedural due process is relatively straightforward directive: did a government entity follow the law when it deprived someone of their life, liberty or property? Substantive due process as a topic is one that lawyers-both practitioners and scholars-regularly debate. It is the 14 th Amendment that created the theory of “substantive due process,” a concept that underpins many liberties that Americans take for granted today. “While the Fifth Amendment says that Congress can’t do certain things, the 14 th expressly applies the same restrictions to the states for the first time,” explains David Flugman, a partner at Selendy Gay Eisberg, who has argued constitutional law cases before numerous courts. Wording in the 14 th Amendment guaranteed for the first time “due process of law” and “the equal protection of the laws” for citizens. The myriad ways that jurists have interpreted it means that the 14 th Amendment also has become the focus of more litigation than any other part of the constitution. But the 14 th Amendment’s wording has emerged as a linchpin of key civil rights cases that have shaped our world. Of these three amendments-the 13 th, 14 th and 15 th- the 14 th Amendment appears less profound in its implications for the way we lead our lives than either of the other two, one abolishing slavery and the other guaranteeing the rights of those formerly enslaved. Constitution ratified during Reconstruction between 18 that address the way that slavery’s demise reshaped America’s legal system and redefined what it meant to be free and equal following the Civil War. ![]() The “Reconstruction amendments” are three key changes to the U.S. ![]()
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